Sir Tim Berners-Lee Live!

Tim Berners-Lee, founder WWW

I am in Riyadh to attend the 2nd ELI Conference on eLearning, which is the largest conference of its kind in Saudi Arabia. I was particular excited to listen to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, founder WWW and Jimmy Wales, founder Wikipedia. We all watch so many speakers on video sites like you-tube, TED etc. I was particularly interested to see if it is a different experience to listen to them live.

And there is a huge difference. You suddenly feel more connected. Even though I was just one of the crowd, there was a shuttle connection. The motivation multiplies. And suddenly the mind starts thinking a lot of new stuff. It was an a great experience.

So what does the founder of the World Wide Web (WWW) have to say about the web at this point in time. Well nothing new that we are not aware of. But still, it is different when you listen such things from legends :-). He emphasized on the following:

HTML5: Tim is bullish on HTML5 and sees the web driven by it in the times to come.

Learning on the Web: Tim believes that a lot of learning will happen on the web. It is already happening, but it would expand tremendously. (I guess he had to say this because of the theme of the conference was eLearning 😉 )

Data on the web: He particularly emphasized this point. These days, when more and more data is being pushed on the web, there’s a need of an ecosystem which can address:

Privacy

Anonymity of data (if required)

Security

Transparency

The above would be the biggest challenges as we move ahead.

He also mentioned about web 3.0 which will largely we driven by the semantic web. Not to forget, the social and collaborative approach would be of significant to whatever is done on the web.

I would again say, listening to such people live is very different from watching some videos and stuff. So whenever you get an opportunity, just do not miss it. It does motivate.

I end this post with a brilliantly done image by one of the guys from ImageThink (more about the image in another post)